Don't make tour groups feel like a race

A gentle snoring came from the bunk above, as the landscape flashed past at 150 km an hour. Shanghai was less than 30 minutes away.

I'd woken early, a combination of excitement and the even earlier sunrise, but Ellen seemed to be immune to its rays. It took some vigorous shaking to get her to open her eyes.

I'm ashamed to say that in the years that I've been in China, I've seen very little of it, so a trip like this was a great chance for me to explore more of it. The Tianjin Medical University had organized the trip for its foreign experts, and very kindly invited me to take Ellen along.

Bleary eyed, we stumbled off the train, and on to a waiting bus, which whisked us off to breakfast - which luckily included coffee strong enough to wake up a herd of elephants.

It was at breakfast that the green flag was first produced. At the time, it looked like such an innocent thing, just a rectangle of emerald-colored cloth - but it was soon to take on a whole new meaning.

We boarded the bus again, and headed out to Zhouzhuang, billed as "the number one floating town in China". Along the way our tour guide, whose English name was Kay, entertained us with stories about Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, and the improvements they had made to Shanghai.

As the bus pulled into Zhouzhuang's parking lot, Kay leapt to the front and produced the green flag. It was mounted on an extendable rod, something akin to a thick radio antenna, and we were instructed to watch it and keep up with it.

I couldn't help thinking that a green flag is also waved at the start of Grand Prix races, as Kay took off at a sprint. We lurched off the bus in stages, trying to keep one eye on the rapidly disappearing flag, the other on the rest of the group.

The walkways of Zhouzhuang are small and narrow, and packed to the rafters with tourists. They wind around and over a series of canals, along which travel traditional wooden punts, each propelled by a single oarsman or oarswoman.

The punts glided along at a steady pace, but it was one we couldn't match. The distance between the green flag and the last member of our group had grown to a few hundred meters, as age and the effort of pushing against a sheer weight of numbers took its toll.

In desperation, I managed a spurt of speed, and elbowed my way through the throng to where the flag was now waving. Catching Kay by the shoulder, I got her to stop, and gently explained to her that our group wasn't as young and spry she was, and that we needed time to make our way through the village, and look at things. She blinked, and agreed that was the case.

I turned back to see how Ellen was getting on, only to find that the flag had once again moved on!

Chinese tour groups must be accustomed to moving at a great pace, and remaining solely focused on their guide's flag. But most foreigners aren't - we're like herding cats, it just can't be done in an easy fashion. We like to stop and look at things, and to take our time.

Zhouzhuang is a lovely place to visit, we all agreed on that - but it would have been nice to have seen it with a snail carrying that green flag!